


Arrangement in Shades of Grey

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:26:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8945302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Vinnie's first night in the fleabag hotel in Seattle.





	

Vinnie lay staring up at the hotel room ceiling, wishing his mind would shut down, wishing the images would turn off—Stemkowski-Sonny-Frank-cycling over and over until somehow Stem was out of the loop and it was just Sonny dying in New York and Frank looking at him in Seattle, dazed, perplexed, saying his name—

"Didja really think it was that easy? Snap your fingers'n change your history?" Sonny, sitting on the edge of his bed. He looked around the room. "God, this place's worse than the one I moved you out of when I hired you."

"I didn't change my history."

"No, but you tried. Gave it a nice rewrite where you're the good guy an' I'm the bad guy an' all the shades'a gray are whitewashed away."

"Sonny, you were a bad guy!"

Sonny smiled. "And you're the good guy?"

"Yes!"

"How do you figure?"

It was laughable. There was no way to explain this to him, he would just never get it. "Never mind, just go away."

"Yeah, that's what you said before. 'You leave with what you got,'" he quoted derisively. "Yeah, sure, but what I've got is your heart—still sure you want me to go?"

Vinnie turned over, his back to Sonny. "You were my first case, that's all."

"So you want me to cut out?"

"Yes."

"Whatever you want. But pretty soon you're gonna be begging for a quiet conversation like this." Sonny brushed the back of his neck.

Vinnie awakened with a start, his hand reaching for the fingers, finding only air. "Get out of my head! Stay out of my head!"

Sleep no longer seemed like such a refuge. Vinnie untangled himself from the covers and got out of bed, grabbing his cigarettes off the table and lighting one, watching the trembling of the flame magnifying the trembling of his hands. He put the lighter down and picked up his gun, looking at it. It wasn't really his gun, it was his Lynchboro deputy issue, and it felt odd and unfamiliar in his hands, like sleeping in a strange bed. That made it better, doing it with a stranger. So easy to pull the trigger; so easy to just check out. He put the gun back down and walked to the window, looking out on the dark, ugly street below. Was it the day before he'd been looking out of a strange window in a strange room in Lynchboro? Or maybe it was the day before that. He'd been arguing about the investigation with Frank, who wanted to pull him off it, and Sonny was alive—

No. Stem was alive. Sonny's been dead a long time. Those years felt like another life, with another person living them. Vinnie wished he was home, in his own bed, with Pete trying to pry him out of it—

But Pete was dead too. And his mother was gone, and his old friends had moved on with their lives . . . . That left Frank and Uncle Mike; everyone else he cared about was dead.

It was raining again, and his cigarette was about to burn his fingers. Vinnie put it out on the window sill and looked over at the gun. It was a Glock, not his preference, but nobody had asked, they'd just given him this gun that who knew how many people had been killed with by who knew how many people. ˇGuns don't kill people; people kill people. That's true, but it's a lot easier if you've got a gun.ˇ

A horn honked outside and Vinnie turned to watch a woman in a black mini skirt and a gold vinyl coat run out of the building across the street and get into a waiting cab, watched the cab drive away, wished he could do the same, just get in a cab and leave, go off to a party, or a job, or some other life, anybody else's life.

"Vince?" Frank's careful, caring voice; Vinnie turned, but he was alone in the room, except for the gun. The gun was still sitting there. Maybe it hadn't been Frank's voice. He went over and turned on the TV, flipping around the stations until he came across Bing Crosby singing with Danny Kaye. "You guys are a little late; this month's special is Valentine's Day." But he stood watching them, suddenly unsure whether it was February or December. Finally he turned away, letting the tv voices fill in the silences in his head. He glanced over at the gun. "Shut up." It would be easy to pick it up— "Shut up." He got out another cigarette, lit it, relieved to see that his hands no longer shook, and began pacing the room. With all the laughter and singing coming from the tv, he felt like a ghost haunting a stranger's birthday party.

The murmur of voices in the next room was escalating to a full-fledged fight; something about money, not enough money, two guys, one with not enough money, the other mad as hell about it, while Rosemary Clooney sang. The gun was looking at him, but Vinnie went back to the window, wondering if the girl in the gold vinyl coat was having a good time, wherever she was, wondering if Frank knew yet that he'd lied to him about Roger. "No, I didn't, I didn't lie to him, I just didn't tell him what I knew." It was just as well he'd never see Frank again; Frank would really lay into him for lying to him, for sticking him with Roger. He went back to the gun and put it in its holster. "Like throwing a towel over a birdcage, to make the bird think it's night and it'll go to sleep." He got his cigarettes and lighter and went back to the window. Nothing was happening on the street, so he watched the rain splash into the puddles and the stoplight change from red to green to yellow, then back to red. He half-suspected the man who didn't have enough money was being murdered by the man who wanted more, but he was here in his own room and his own gun was sitting safely in its holster; neither of them was involved, and right now that was the best he could do.

"Don't get too involved, Buckwheat, there's no percentage in it. Just do your job and get out. Those two guys wanna kill each other, how is it your business?"

"It isn't," he told Roger. "It isn't and I don't care."

"Maybe you're learning," Roger said grudgingly.

"Maybe I am, Rog, but I think it's too late."

He didn't hear the movie end, or the station sign off, but he heard the staticky ghost voices that snuck in under the white noise through the now-open channel. He looked at the screen and saw the ghost images flickering through the snow. "I got too fucking many ghosts in my life already," he muttered, and went over to change the station. The tag-end of another sign-off was all he found, so at last he settled on one with nothing but harsh, defiant static.

He looked at the gun, picked it up, took it out of its holster. One of the men must be dead; there was dead silence coming from that room, leaving room for the sounds of the fake orgasm from the hooker on other side. There was only so much space for sound, and as long as his room never got too quiet, maybe he wouldn't have to hear what the gun was trying to tell him, though he knew it was still there, whispering at him.

"Shut up," he told it again. He jerked the clip out of the gun, put the gun back in the holster and dropped them back on the chest of drawers.

A door slammed, the hooker leaving, giggling past his door in a stoned-out way.

"Vince?"

"Dammit, shut up!" He moved to the far corner of the room, away from the gun and clip, but the gun was still watching him. He ignored it, lighting another cigarette.

"Wish you'd quit those fuckin' things; they're not kidding when they say it's like licking an ashtray."

"So keep your tongue to yourself!" Vinnie snapped back, not turning to see if Sonny was really there or not, not caring if he was talking to the gun until he heard a heavy click, like a clip being pushed back into a gun. He turned to look at the gun, but the clip wasn't laying next to it. He looked around the maybe-empty room; finding no one there, he went over and gingerly pulled the gun from the holster and examined it. No, the clip wasn't in it. "Very funny. Wha'd you do with it?" No answer, not from the gun or anyone else. He opened the drawer, meaning to put the gun inside, but there was the clip. Vinnie threw the gun across the room, then slammed the drawer shut hard enough to shake the wall. "Dammit! Stop it! Quit fucking with my head!"

"Shut up in there!" the guy who wanted more money yelled.

"Just stop it," Vinnie said more quietly. He didn't know where the gun had gone. "Oh, that was smart, letting it get away." He moved carefully around the room, scanning it as inconspicuously as he could, but the gun had found a good hiding place. "C'm'on, Sonny, give it back," he whispered, not wanting the gun to hear him.

A low laugh behind him; he turned quickly, but no one was there. The gun lay in a shadow near the door. Vinnie picked it up and set it back on the chest of drawers; then he remembered and put it back in the holster.

Back to the window for another smoke. At this rate his pack wouldn't last him the night.  
"How long does it take to smoke a cigarette?" he asked his lighter, but got no answer. He couldn't tell if it was still raining, but what difference did it make anyway? He wasn't going anywhere. A dark car sped down the street, stereo booming, shaking the window.

"Vince?"

"Dammit, Frank, go away." But he knew Frank wasn't here, that it hadn't been Frank who had spoken to him, offering him comfort. "No." Unsure, he said it again. "No. No."

The gun didn't believe him. He wasn't sure he believed himself.

"I know that's what you want; you want me to take the same low-class coward's way out you did, well, you can go fuck yourself, I'm not gonna do it—"

"It'll all stop. Trust me, I know. You won't hurt and you won't be able to hurt anyone else."

That was a lie, at least the second part was. It would hurt Frank if he did what the gun wanted. It would hurt his mother, and Uncle Mike, it would hurt Roger—

But mostly he was afraid the it was the first part was a lie, too. "Forget it, Sonny. You want me over on your side, you're gonna have to come get me."

"You think I couldn't?" Sonny's voice rasped his mind seductively.

He turned from the window, wishing he could see him, could stare him down. "Then give it your best fucking shot!"

The gun chuckled appreciatively at this unintended pun.

He closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against the cool glass. "I just wanna sleep."

The gun laughed again.

He sat there for a long time, the rain pelting the window reverberating through his skin. one of his aunts had called them, had told him that was why it had rained the day his father died, and the day he was first arrested. Now she looked away when she saw him in the street.

A car door slammed below and Vinnie opened his eyes. A short man in an old black trench coat was standing in the rain, watching the car he'd emerged from disappear into the dusky morning. "The sun's coming up." Vinnie had never felt such relief. He went over and opened the drawer, took out the clip, and unloaded it, standing the bullets up in a neat line on the dresser. "Good little soldiers, all in a row." He nudged one and they all toppled. "One little push and you fall over dead. Now maybe you'll be quiet and leave me alone."

He went back to the bed, pulled the covers up over his head, and slept.


End file.
